Walter Ego
Illuminator
Apparently Deconstructing Robert
Oswald was a poorly-educated emotionally unstable screw up, hardly secret agent material. The KGB, who knew a thing or two about the spy game, wouldn't touch Oswald with a ten foot pole.
Vladimir Semichastny, former head of the KGB who handled Oswald's case:
In addition to foreign language training, Oswald lacked even the basic fundamentals of espionage tradecraft, including photography and radio repair skills.
To KGB counter-intelligence, this would indicate that Oswald knew nothing about simple radio equipment and, consequently, he had received no special intelligence training.
Back in the US, Oswald's couldn't even make up a realistic phony I.D. card despite having access to sophisticated photographic equipment at his job at the graphic arts firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall in Dallas.
So much for Lee Harvey Oswald, Super Spy.
Since it is now "apparent" that Robert's conjecture that Oswald was sent to a US government school to learn Russian is false, his further conjecture that Oswald was "sent to USSR so that he could spy for the US," which follows from the first conjecture, is equally false.[Oswald] ...was apparently sent to language school so that he could speak fluent Russian, then sent to USSR so that he could spy for the US.
Oswald was a poorly-educated emotionally unstable screw up, hardly secret agent material. The KGB, who knew a thing or two about the spy game, wouldn't touch Oswald with a ten foot pole.
Vladimir Semichastny, former head of the KGB who handled Oswald's case:
Mr. SEMICHASTNY: There were conversations, but [the intel Oswald had to offer] was such outdated information, the kind we say the sparrows have already chirped to the entire world, and now Oswald tells us about it. Not the kind of information that would interest such a high-level organization like ours.
NARRATOR: Still, Semichastny conceded, the KGB considered recruiting Oswald as a spy.
Mr. SEMICHASTNY: Counterintelligence and intelligence -- they both looked him over to see what he was capable of but unfortunately, neither could find any ability at all...
We concluded that he was not working for American intelligence. His intellectual training experience and capabilities were such that it would not show the FBI and the CIA in a good light if they used people like him.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/1205.html
In addition to foreign language training, Oswald lacked even the basic fundamentals of espionage tradecraft, including photography and radio repair skills.
What else did Oswald go in for in his spare time [in Minsk]? He bought himself a camera, but he never did learn how to take pictures properly. He also bought a radio to listen to the Voice of America which was not jammed by the Soviets at that time. Incidentally, being a U.S. Marine electronics specialist, Oswald never did prove himself to be a handyman because when his radio went on the blink, he was unable to fix it himself. His friends did it for him, by simply bending back a thin plate.
Russian Press Digest Paraphrase of Sergei Mostovshchikov, "KGB Case No. 31451 on Lee Harvey Oswald", Izvestia, August 11, 1992.
To KGB counter-intelligence, this would indicate that Oswald knew nothing about simple radio equipment and, consequently, he had received no special intelligence training.
Back in the US, Oswald's couldn't even make up a realistic phony I.D. card despite having access to sophisticated photographic equipment at his job at the graphic arts firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall in Dallas.
So much for Lee Harvey Oswald, Super Spy.
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